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Women’s ‘red flag’ app Tea is a privacy nightmare
(www.theverge.com)
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this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2025
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it seems its an app that helps women flag potential dating candidates as being dangerous or red flags.
there is the potential for doxxing that comes with that, but I can absolutely understand its use and need when not abused in that manner.
i wonder if there's the potential for a different app with more encryption and a way to prevent doxxing and abuse.
There's definitely a use case, but there's an inherent power imbalance to these products that makes sure they will always be misused. The submitters are anonymous, and it's up to the person being reported on to prove the accusations are false.
Or, they're supposed to be anonymous.
The person doesn't even know they're mentioned in the app.
Which is even worse, because unless someone tells them, they're blissfully unaware.
With most forms of Libel, at least the victim will see it in a timely manner.
How do you warn people about a potential dating candidate being dangerous without doxxing the potential dating candidate? "Hey, watch out for [anonymous person]" doesn't sound very useful.
...you know? that's a fair point. I'm not sure how it would work. but it would be nice to know some stuff if its important.
Encryption, sure.
Preventing doxxing? I highly doubt it. But hey, it's women doing it so it's ok and anyone who criticizes that is an incel.
wha? i didn't say anything about incels. or that doxxing is ok.
You would have to have everyone take a polygraph or something (not that they actually work but a lot of people don't know that so maybe it would prevent them from lying in the first place). There's no way to prevent people from lying for whatever reason they have and there's no way to detect whether or not the thing they have posted is truthful.
The truth is as much benefit as the app may have when used properly the risk of abuse is far too high for it to ever be workable.
If you have a smoke alarm in your house that occasionally explodes and sets your house on fire, but the rest of the time actually works as a fire alarm, then it's not a useful product, as even if the chance of it exploding was less than 1% it would still eventually blow up your house, whereas if you never installed the alarm there was every possibility your house will never catch fire. So game theory suggests that you are better off without it.
Same with this app, sure it might prevent you experiencing a bad date but there's every possibility that it will also cause you not to date somebody who's actually a nice person. You are far better off just making that judgement yourself as you always did. And to be clear given human nature, the likelihood of the "fire alarm exploding" is probably a lot higher than 1%